Fish in five spots added to mercury advisory list

Fish in five spots added to mercury advisory list

By: Judy Fahys and Brett Prettyman
The Salt Lake Tribune

Women of childbearing age and kids 14 and under shouldn't eat certain types of fish from a total of 15 areas in Utah

Mercury contamination has prompted new advisories on eating certain fish from some of Utah's most popular fishing spots.
Officials from Utah health, wildlife and environment agencies Tuesday revised several past warnings and added them at five new locations.

Now fish-consumption advisories apply to 15 spots statewide, including the high-traffic Jordanelle Reservoir and Weber River.
The advisories are meant to educate the public about the danger of overconsumption of the tainted fish, and not to scare anyone away from enjoying a healthy source of protein, said John Whitehead, deputy director of the Division of Water Quality.



"We just want people to choose wisely when they eat fish," he said.
Mercury, a naturally occurring metal, can change form in the environment into toxic methyl mercury. In this toxic form, it builds up in the food chain, so that larger, fish-eating fish are more likely to accumulate worrisome levels of methyl mercury in their flesh. And mercury builds up in people who eat those fish, too.
The health advisories give special warning to women of childbearing age and children 14 and under. They are considered most vulnerable to harm from methyl mercury, which causes neurological damage that can result in tremors, memory loss, irritability, low I.Q. and other health problems.
With that in mind, state
Health Department epidemiologist Christina McNaughton urged the three-agency panel behind the advisories to rethink the recommendations for rainbow trout from Newcastle and Upper Enterprise reservoirs, as well as brown trout from the Weber River around Morgan.

The old advisories didn't take into account that a normal portion size is 4 ounces or larger. The new advisory simply suggests that women of childbearing age and children simply should not eat any of the brown and rainbow trout from those locations.
"It's for consistency's sake," said McNaughton.

Michelle Hofmann, a Salt Lake City pediatrician and leader of Utah Moms for Clean Air, supported the revised warnings.
"That margin of safety needs to be in there," she said.
The state has mercury tissue samples going back to 2000. Since then, 1,640 fish have been tested for methyl mercury from 192 streams and 69 lakes and reservoirs.
The testing program began to be stepped up in 2005, when U.S. Geological Survey scientists reported that the Great Salt Lake was a huge trap for mercury and a powerful machine for transforming the metal into its toxic form. No other natural place in the nation was close.

In the years since, state and federal agencies have tried to identify where the mercury originates and how it is getting into the lake and the other Utah waterways where fish have high mercury levels. One possible culprit is Nevada's gold mines, which have been releasing mercury from their stacks for years.
Whitehead said it was important to note that just 6 percent of the state's lakes and rivers are affected.
"In perspective, this is not a raging epidemic," he said. "Some water bodies are just fine."
Walt Donaldson, aquatics section chief for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, says that while sampling results hold no surprises, there are concerns.

He is curious about how a young reservoir, like Sand Hollow Reservoir in Washington County, which started filling in March 2002 and was not at capacity until 2006, could already hold largemouth bass exceeding the EPA limit for mercury.
Another troubling fact is the presence of unsafe levels of mercury in the rainbow trout in Upper Enterprise and New Castle reservoirs in southwestern Utah. Rainbows in those reservoirs are from hatcheries and are free of mercury when planted.
"They are picking it up in the reservoirs at a rather fast rate," Donaldson said.
That rainbows have the high levels of mercury is troubling because they are on the top of the list of fish species that Utah anglers take home for a family dinner.

Paul Dremann, a member of the Mercury Working Group representing anglers in the state, said more mercury testing is required.
"Once we find areas where fish have high levels of mercury, it will take real money to find out where the sources are, and right now that money is not there," he said.
Dremann said many anglers in Utah are not overly concerned about the fish consumption warnings on mercury because few eat the fish they catch on a regular enough basis to exceed the EPA levels.